Hello lovely ladies! How are you? Welcome to the first Menu Plan Monday of 2011! If you are looking to get yourself organized this year, planning a menu is an excellent place to start. I’m not kidding. The amount of head space and time it saves you is incredible. The many benefits of menu planning have been a lifesaver for me and my family. It’s definitely made for a much smoother running household that is for sure. If you are new here, welcome. Please feel free to browse the many different menu plans you see listed below, you’ll find a great variety of ideas and recipes.

Sunday was one of those grand days that just left me so in awe of God’s beautiful design everywhere I looked. It was Canadiana at it’s best. Pond skating and hockey! Here are just a few pictures of our fun:

The sunset was stunning. Sunsets like these are new for us as we were surrounded by mountains at all sides where we used to live and spent a lot of time socked in by clouds. Every day here I am blown away by the array of colors, it just doesn’t get old to me!

Okay so I need your help again. For Christmas I got a new waffle maker and used this recipe to make up a batch of Buttermilk Waffles. They were good but were soft and not very crispy. I’d prefer a little more crispy. If you’ve got a family favorite waffle recipe would you mind sharing the link in the comments for me. Thanks!

If you are looking for some menu inspiration and maybe a new recipe or two to try check out this resource put together by Finding Joy in My Kitchen. It’s a linky of all her (your) best recipes of 2010. She has a different post for each category. Check it out and feel free to add your own link. I’ve even snagged a recipe from over there for this week :)

Wow, your pictures are beautiful. Even though I don’t like the cold, I would love to “hop” in to one of your photos! So much fun!
Going to check out your spinach chicken pasta, my kids can’t seem to eat enough pasta in our house!
Toni

Wow! Just gorgeous. Looks a little cold for my taste, so I don’t think I’d enjoy being there as much as I enjoy looking at the pictures! This Florida girl is very content to live vicariously through you. =)

*we have found that buttermilk works great for pancakes, but regular milk, soymilk, almond milk, or orange juice makes a crispier waffle. Oh, and if you add the o.j. be sure to add some cinnamon, too. YUM!

Happy New Year! On the waffle cripiness: I’ve just made sure the (already non-stick) surface is greased/oiled well, and really, really hot. Then I leave them in for about 30-60 seconds longer than the manuf. says. Still leaves them fluffy, but crispy outside. HTH!

Good morning…I have a great recipe for waffles that come out crispy…the secret is to separate the eggs and whip the whites to soft peaks and then fold into the batter at the end leaving some lumps…it works great, but I cant say I have tried it with buttermilk…good luck! BTW, first time poster but have read your blogs for awhile! :)

Happy New Year. I always use Pamela’s Baking Mix for our gluten-free waffles. You have to try making hash brown potatoes in your waffle iron. I saw this in Cooking for Isaiah by Silvana Nardone. They get so perfectly crispy, so fast. My kids love them this way. She just mixes shredded drained potatoes with a little oil and salt and plops a scoop right into the waffle iron. Sorry, that’s the best crispy waffle I’ve made in my new waffle iron lately.

Wow, those pictures are amazing. Talk about capturing the splendor of Mother Nature.

I’m a big fan of waffles because I can make extras and freeze them. My favorite recipe has the benefit of being make-ahead, so you can prep the batter the night before to make the morning easier. It also uses white wheat flour.

I have a non-stick waffle maker, but my gut instinct is to spray every cooking surface with cooking spray. I found that when I don’t spray my waffle maker though, my waffles are very crispy, so you might try that if your new maker is non-stick.

I’m looking forward to participating weekly. Thanks so much for hosting!

Happy new year!
This is such a special recipe for us–my mom loved these waffles, most of all for that they were dairy free. They really are light and fluffy and if you leave them in long enough (a problem–everyone wants these RIGHT NOW when we’re making them!) they have a great crisp to them. This is how she sent it to me years ago…Enjoy!

Place baking mix in bowl or wide pitcher.
With fork, beat egg with oil. Stir in to baking mix.
Gradually add soda, mixing until batter is moist and thick.
For best results, let batter rest five minutes before starting.
Pour on waffle iron; close. Bake to done, whatever that means for your iron (2 minutes? no steam?). Waffle should be brown and separate easily from iron.
Best eaten immediately though they can be reheated later.

Love the photos. This is my first year attempting menu planning, hopefully it will help me become better organized and soon become a habit.

And I agree with Natayna, if you can go without spraying the waffle maker it does seem to prevent soggy waffles. We prefer ours crisp too. But we are gluten free, so I doubt you’d want a recipe from me :)

Hey Flora, I do cook gluten free along dairy and egg free as well for my son although I make his waffles separately and freeze them for him as it’s too expensive for us to all eat things made with his special flours.

Sunsets and pond hockey? Canadiana is right! We’ve had such mild temps here in Nova Scotia that we haven’t been able to skate quite yet, but I look forward to it. Outside is just so much better. :)

I posted about our waffles back in March. I’m not sure where I got the original recipe, but chances are good that I tweaked it anyway – I always do. We always keep the dry mix in the pantry, so it’s easy to do in the mornings. Cook longer for more crisp. Yum!

I always tripple this recipe and it makes enough to feed four hungry adults and a kid or two (and a piece for the dog). They cook up nice and crisp. The recipe says “for crisper waffles, use 2 tbsp more fat and cook longer”.

Well, I’m not sure if anyone will even see a link so far down on the list, but since this is the first time I have done a meal plan in AGES, I thought I’d better go ahead and add mine to the pile!

Of course I had good motivation to finally get going on the meal planning train: I am starting a new job and need to be on the ball, AND I’m going to watch my carbs more now that we’re in the new year, as part of the 2011 Weight Loss and Wellness Adventure I’m doing at my blog.

Thanks for the gorgeous pics! That spinach chicken pasta looks so yummy! I’ll be adding olives to my recipe next week though, because I like the way olives can complement certain dishes. I also have to say THANK YOU for sharing the recipe for the brown sugar meatloaf. I have been searching for a similar recipe for months. I haven’t tried it yet, but I was going to make meatloaf this week, but decided to wait for next week just in case a good recipe was featured on a blog. Impeccable timing!

My favorite waffle recipe is Alton Brown’s. He is the host of Good Eats on Food Network. When I follow his directions and recipe the results are always perfect waffles! I posted a video and the recipe on my blog:

By now you are burdened with waffle recipes!!! Here’s ours… http://www.se7en.org.za/2009/08/26/wonderful-waffles-in-se7en-steps
My hubs got me a waffle iron the year that “iron” is the wedding anniversary gift and I haven’t looked back!!! I never even knew you could make waffles before then I just thought you got them in restaurants!!! Like what was I thinking – but anyway that was in the olden days before kids so forgive my stupidity!!!

When I want crispy waffles I use the Overnight Waffle recipe from Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything. It is very similar to the recipe linked by Lynn here in the comments. I think waffles made with yeast tend to have a crisper texture than those using baking soda as the leaven.

Also, I serve them as soon as they are done-no waiting on a plate for all to finish. If I have to wait to serve everyone at the same time, I’ll keep the cooked ones on a rack in the oven at a low temp.

To make the waffles crispy, use shortening to grease the waffle iron instead of cooking spray. Just put a little dab of it in there, then close the lid and let it melt. It really helps for pancakes in the pan too!

Oh, the pictures are beautiful! And so different from our lives in GA where we were SO excited to have the first white Christmas in over 100 years! And you know what, it was only about 2 inches, lol!
I am going to try the Spinach Chicken pasta!
BerniceWhat is valuable to you?

Hey there, I’ve been a long time reader and this is my first week to participate. For whatever reason I can not link up :( I’ve tried three times and it’s just not showing up :( I thought I was pretty computer savvy, and have done link ups before… Anyway, really enjoy your blog, thanks for the all the inspiration!

The brown sugar meatloaf is fantastic! We’ve scaled back on the sugar though, and put the ketchup/sugar mixture on top rather than on the bottom. Seems plenty sweet to me even without the sugar. :-) Oh, and your pictures are beautiful!

Ahh…I’m getting back into the swing of things with meal planning. Like many, I’ve got renewed enthusiasm…so we’ll see how long that lasts. LOL! This year I’m going to TRY and add breakfast and lunchbox meal plans also since those are big challenges for me. I’m hoping that if I write them down and put them “out there” I’ll be more likely to change things up and get a little more variety for my family. Happy New Year!

Happy New Year from Alberta! Excited to stay up to date with Menu Planning Mondays. I know it always feels better when I have SOME Kind of plan for meals for the week. Thanks for the encouragement to keep doing it!

I had the same problem when I received a new waffle iron. I found that if I cooked the waffles twice the amount of time (or two cycles) they were much more crispy.
This is the recipe I use:
Homestyle Waffles
3 Eggs
3 cups milk
1/2 cup oil
1 tablespoon vanilla
3 3/4 cups flour
3 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons baking powder
1 tablespoon salt

I was just going to post my waffle recipe, but Susan uses the same one. The club soda makes the difference. I have found that when i make them with club soda that has gone flat (because I should have just made four batches in the first place!) they are not as crispy. I make a bunch, flash freeze, put them in a bread bag in the freezer and toast like eggos in the morning. Big hit around here.